


you will be a part of me

by sunshinehide



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, also this goes with the root a ending, other than that it's the same tokyo ghoul world, the only thing that's different about this fic is that soulmate marks exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 16:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinehide/pseuds/sunshinehide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off hapinesssdeceit's prompt on tumblr: "The Soulmate AU where the words engraved onto your skin at birth are the last words your soulmate will ever say to you. And Kaneki’s words have always been so gentle, tucked into the curve of his right shoulder, that his mother kissed him and said, thank goodness, because it seemed that he wouldn't suffer a painful love."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you will be a part of me

Kaneki’s words were on the curve of his right shoulder.

“Let’s go home,” his mother said with a twinge of sadness in her tone. She knew that those three words would be the same words Kaneki’s soul mate would ever say to him, and they couldn’t have been more heart-warming.   _“Thank goodness,”_ she said to herself as she kissed the shoulder of her recently born son, who was crying out to the world and was grabbing at the sleeve of her husband’s shirt.

 

* * *

 

Hide’s words were on the curve of his left shoulder.

At age six, Kaneki noticed this when a classmate of theirs pulled on Hide’s sleeve. What the words said wasn’t clear to him, since Hide rearranged his shirt to its original position before Kaneki could read it. He did see that the first letter was an ‘L’, though.

“Hide, is your soul mate mark on your left shoulder?” Kaneki inquired when they were walking to the park near the school building. Hide nodded, “Yeah! I remember first looking at it when I was 4, and my mom said that I would subconsciously scratch at it, but I broke out of that habit,” he answered. “What about yours? Y’know… your mark. You don’t have to tell me what it says, but where is it located?” Hide asked back to his best friend.

Kaneki smiled, “It’s on my right shoulder.”

Hide let out a surprised gasp, “Woooah! Dude, that’s cool! You have yours on your right, and I have mine on my left!”

“It’s a weird coincidence, isn’t it?” Kaneki asked with a slight chuckle.

Hide nodded, “Yup.”

The conversation of their soul mate marks never was brought back up again after that. Not because it was an uncomfortable subject to talk about, but just rather the fact that they didn’t feel they needed to talk about it.

* * *

 

At age 10, Kaneki didn’t have his mother anymore. He would never feel his mother’s love again, and he held his right shoulder (right where his mother used to kiss it before bed) as he lulled himself to sleep with his cries.

* * *

 

When he was 16, Hide brought back the subject about their words. They were sitting on top of the whale in the children’s playground, which was their favourite meeting spot. It was quite late; the moon was in the sky and the very few stars illuminated the city sky. Kaneki had called Hide around 11 p.m., and Hide had heard the hint of hurt in Kaneki’s voice over the phone call. Hide suggested for him and Kaneki to meet up at the park, so that he could comfort his best friend and to get him away from his aunt’s house.

Hide had brought Kaneki a burger and some fries from Big Girl, but they were untouched by both of them.

The silence that both males were sharing was broken by Kaneki when he spoke, “Don’t you think it’s sad that our words on our skin already tell us the last words our soul mate will ever say to us?”

Hide looked at Kaneki and examined him; he was looking at the night sky with a melancholic expression on his face. Hide nodded, “Yeah, it is sad. Kind of unfair, really,” he responded. “But,” he said in a bit more cheerful tone, “it still reminds us that we have a soul mate, doesn’t it? Someone who loves us, and will be there for us no matter what the circumstances are. There are some people born without the marks, and I feel sorry for them. So even though the words to remind us what the other person is going to say in their last, saddening moments, it still serves to make us know that we do have someone waiting for us,” he explained.

When he heard no respond from his best friend, he gave a sheepish laugh and looked back up the sky. “Sorry, that was a bit cheesy,” Hide scratched his cheek. Kaneki responded in the next few seconds, “No, it was fine.”

They fell back into their comfortable silence for a few more moments until Kaneki said unexpectedly, “My words say, ‘Let’s go home’,” he told Hide.

Hide’s breath stopped, and his eyes met Kaneki’s own silver ones. _‘That’s what mine says,’_ he thought, _‘No big deal, some people get the same words but aren’t each other’s soul mates.’_

Hide regained his composure and let out a small laugh, “That’s weird!”, he quickly continued talking when Kaneki looked taken aback. “That’s what mine says. Look,” he followed this by pulling down on the hem of his t-shirt to show his left shoulder. Kaneki looked at it and made a surprised noise, “Huh… _‘Let’s go home,’_ ” he read. He pulled at his own t-shirt until Hide could see the words on Kaneki’s right shoulder. Sure enough, Kaneki’s words matched Hide’s.

Both of them spent the rest of the night talking casually until Kaneki’s aunt called Kaneki to go back home, and from then, they never brought up the topic of their shared words.

* * *

 

It had been a few months since Kaneki had seen Hide. It physically and emotionally hurt him, but he had to keep his best friend safe. He couldn’t afford to let Hide be hurt again at the hands of a ghoul.

Whenever Hide sent him a message, Kaneki would read it over and over again until he had the words burned into his mind.

Sometimes, Kaneki’s friends would catch him subconsciously touching his right shoulder and they pointed it out. “Big brother, is that where your soul mate words are?” Hinami asked him one day when Kaneki was teaching her more words to learn and he was mindlessly tracing patterns over the curve of his right shoulder.

Kaneki looked at her in surprise how she managed to figure that out (he reminded himself that Hinami was pretty perceptive) but the white haired ghoul smiled faintly. “Yeah,” he told her. Hinami smiled, “Have you met them yet?” she asked him hopefully. Kaneki shook his head, “No… No, I don’t think so at least. Maybe I have, though. People always meet their soul mates and we don’t find out who they are until they… fade away from us,” he said as he looked down, biting at his lip anxiously. He sighed, “But… anyways, let’s go back to teaching you more words. This character means….”

* * *

 

Kaneki’s mind had barely registered that Hide was hurt.

Gravely hurt.

How had he not noticed?

How could he have not noticed the pool of Hide’s blood?

Hide gripped at his wound with a pained expression on his face, but he was quickly trying to switch back to being cheerful, he needed to. Hide supported himself with the edge of the table, and he looked up at Kaneki with a smile. “Kaneki…” he spoke.

Kaneki looked at him back at him, and he could see the light fading away slowly from Hide’s warm, brown orbs. _‘No, no, no, no,’_ Kaneki panicked, he couldn’t afford to let Hide die. No, he couldn’t. Not after he told himself that he wouldn’t let Hide get hurt.

“Let’s go home,” Hide finished his words as he collapsed, and Kaneki quickly moved to catch him.

At that moment, Kaneki felt the familiar spot where his words were burn. It didn’t hurt him, though. What hurt him more was seeing Hide in pain, struggling.

Realising that Hide was dying, and those were the last words he was going to say to him, he frantically searched for a way to help his best friend.

_His only best friend._

_His warmth._

_The one place he could call home._

Kaneki cradled Hide’s body closer to him, hoping that he could give off some body warmth. Hide wore a peaceful expression on his face, and his nose was pressing into Kaneki’s clothes, breathing in the comforting scent of Kaneki.

* * *

Kaneki didn’t even realise the building was bursting into flames. Wood fell from the ceiling and silverware was exploding from the pressure. The flames licked the building, surrounding the two.

Kaneki was still holding Hide’s body close to him, and he began to cry.

“Hide,” he shakily whispered as the tears fell onto his best friend’s face. As one tear slid down Hide’s cheek and settled in the crook on his nose, a faint smile appeared. In turn, Kaneki’s lips formed into a small smile. “Let’s go home, Hide,” he told him.

**_“Let’s go home.”_ **

**Author's Note:**

> so, uh, sorry for my writing skills on this one. i wrote this pretty quickly and it's unbeta'd. i'll most likely fix it later. and sorry in general if this made the healed scar of the last anime episode open again. 
> 
> but, yeah! the headcanon made me hurt really bad and i literally just plopped down on my couch and let out a scream then had the motivation to write a fic for it (and ignored my schoolwork). this was originally going to be less than 900 words, but oh well. 
> 
> thank you for reading!


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